Mostly about my backyard chickens. (Boring, I know), but there are a lot of us out here. Mine are only kept as pampered pets. I could eat a neighbor's chicken, but not MINE. There may be a comment on current events only if I get riled up enough. And there will always be a cartoon or a joke to cheer us. I promise to try my very best to respond to comments. Now I have to figure out how this blogger thingy works....

Monday, November 30, 2015

The Elephant Shark or Australian ghostshark (Callorhinchus milii)
is a cartilaginous fish (Chondrichthyes) belonging to the subclass Holocephali (chimaera). Sharks, rays and skates are the
other members of the cartilaginous fish group and are grouped under the subclass Elasmobranchii. Alternative names also include makorepe,
whitefish, plownose chimaera, or elephant fish.
The ghost shark is easy to recognize due to the small
club-like structure located on the snout. The mouth is located just
behind the snout and the
eyes which are often green are large and set high on
the head. There is a single gill opening immediately in front of the
pectoral fin origin on each
side of the fish. The pectoral fins are large,
providing a primary means of locomotion. There are two widely spaced
dorsal fins. There is a spine
located just anterior to the first dorsal fin; the
first dorsal fin is much taller than the second dorsal fin and the anal
fin is taller than the
caudal fin. The caudal fin is broadest at the lower
lobe origin and lacks a caudal filament. The upper lobe of the caudal
fin is much longer than the
lower lobe.
The body is silvery white, similar to aluminum foil in color
and occasionally has dark markings posterior to the eyes as well as on
the fins.
It is found off southern Australia, including Tasmania, and
south of East Cape and Kaipara Harbour in New Zealand. This chimaera
resides on continental
shelves of cool temperate areas to depths to at least
656 feet (200 m). It has also been reported to migrate into estuaries
and inshore bays during the
spring months to mate.
The maximum reported size of the ghost shark is 49 inches
(125 cm) total length. Males reach maturity at 2-3 years of age,
corresponding to 19.7 inches
(50 cm) total length, while females mature at 4-6
years of age and 27.6 inches (70 cm) total length. The lifespan of the
ghost shark is approximately 15
years.
The club-like projection on the snout of the ghost shark is
used to search for prey. The end is covered in pores that sense movement
and weak electrical
fields. Ghost sharks feed primarily on shellfish and
molluscs including the clam Maorimactra ordinaria.
The ghost shark is oviparous. Two keratinous egg cases are
released during the spring months onto sandy or muddy bottoms in shallow
water. The egg cases
measure up to 25 cm in length and 10 cm in width and
are golden yellow in color. During the following 8 months, the embryos
remain in the egg cases
feeding solely on yolk. The coloration of the egg
case changes through time, from golden yellow when first released by the
female to brown and black prior
to hatching. When the young hatch, they measure
about 15 cm in length. They will move from the shallow water nursery
area to deeper water as they grow.
This fish has three cone pigments for colour vision (like
humans); its dorsal fin has a very sharp spine. The spine has been
reputed to be venomous, but
no serious injuries have yet been reported.
Predators of the ghost shark include larger fish including sharks.

Sunday, November 29, 2015

Again

Again, this couldn't happen againThis is that once in a lifetimeThis is the thrill divineWhat's more, this never happened beforeThough I have prayed for a lifetimeThat such as you would suddenly be mineMine to hold as I'm holding you now and yet never so nearMine to have when the now and the here disappearWhat matters, dear, for whenThis doesn't happen againWe'll have this moment foreverBut never, never, againWe'll have this moment foreverBut never, never, again

Spokane, Portland & Seattle 700 is the only surviving example of the E-1 class 4-8-4 Northern type steam locomotive. Nearly identical to the A-3 class Northerns built for Northern Pacific Railway, it burns oil instead of coal.
After years of running second-hand equipment, the Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway (SP&S) was allowed by its parent companies, Great Northern Railway
and Northern Pacific Railway, to purchase its first new locomotives.
These included three Northern E-1 class locomotives (700, 701 and 702)
for passenger service and 6 Z-6 class Challengers (4-6-6-4s) for freight service.
After retirement from service in 1956, the SP&S 700 was donated to the City of Portland, Oregon, in 1958. It was on static public display at Oaks Amusement Park until 1987, then moved to private quarters for the continuation of work to restore it to operating condition. It began making occasional excursion runs in 1990.[2] In 2012, the 700 was moved to a new facility where it can again be viewed by the public, the Oregon Rail Heritage Center.

Revenue service years

700 was delivered on June 21, 1938, joining the 702 pulling overnight passenger trains between Spokane and Vancouver, Washington, along the north shore of the Columbia River, with the 701 providing backup and pulling freight. Owing to an undersized turntable, the Northerns didn't reach Portland, Oregon, until 1943.
By 1947, the Great Northern Railway had begun to streamline its premier passenger train, The Empire Builder, and had started adding diesels
to the locomotive mix. SP&S also started purchasing diesels at this
time, but they arrived after the streamlined cars were brought into
service and for a few months, the 700s pulled the Portland section of
Great Northern's Empire Builder and Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited.
Through the late 1940s and early 1950s, the E-1s continued to pull
secondary passenger trains, but by 1954, the diesels had completely
replaced steam for passenger service and the E-1s were relegated to
pulling freight trains until 1955.
Finally, on May 20, 1956, a spruced-up 700, with its normally grey smokebox painted silver, pulled its last passenger train. The Farewell To Steam run had a total of 21 cars carrying 1,400 passengers from Portland, Oregon, to Wishram, Washington, in the heart of the Columbia Gorge, and back again.
After the trip, the 700, 701, 702, Challengers and other SP&S
locomotives were sent to the scrap line. At the same time, however, Union Pacific Railroad was offering to donate a steam locomotive to the city of Portland, Oregon, and not to be outdone, the SP&S offered the 700. The two locomotives (SP&S 700 and OR&N 197) were moved into Oaks Park along the Willamette River in 1958 and were soon joined by SP 4449 where they sat for nearly 20 years.

Display at Oaks Park

For nearly 20 years the 700, along with the other two locomotives,
sat behind chain link fences, slowly fading and rusting away. Only the
attention of a single Southern Pacific Railroad
employee, Jack Holst, saved the locomotives from complete uselessness.
Mr. Holst regularly visited the locomotives and kept the bearings and
rods well greased and oiled. Unfortunately, Mr. Holst died in 1972,
before the first locomotive (SP 4449) was removed from Oaks Park and
restored. In 1975, 15-year-old Chris McLarney started working on the
700, cleaning and oiling various parts. He founded the PRPA (Pacific Railroad Preservation Association) in 1977 to provide support for the preservation work.
In November 1987, the SP&S 700 was moved from Oaks Park to the Southern Pacific's Brooklyn Roundhouse, in southeast Portland, for the continuation of restoration work.[2] With the support of many individuals and Burlington Northern Railroad, the 700 returned to operation in 1990.

1990 to present

Although it's the third largest steam locomotive
still in operation and expensive to run and insure, the 700 has managed
a number of excursions since its restoration in 1990, including an
historic double header with SP 4449 from Portland, Oregon, to Wishram,
Washington, and back during the 2005 National Railway Historical Society national convention, and a 2002 "Steam across Montana" from Sandpoint, Idaho, to Billings, Montana, and back.

Disposition and maintenance

Until June 2012, the 700 and its two companions resided at the Brooklyn Roundhouse. The City of Portland was leasing the roundhouse from its owner, Union Pacific Railroad (UP), but after the railroad announced plans to demolish the roundhouse to allow expansion of the yard, the engines needed to find a new home. The Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation, with significant support from the City of Portland, raised funds for a new restoration and visitor center adjacent to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, to provide the city's steam locomotives with a permanent and publicly accessible home before the closure of the roundhouse.
Construction of the new Oregon Rail Heritage Center began in October 2011 and the 700 and the other two locomotives were moved to the site of the new enginehouse and heritage center on June 26, 2012. They were moved indoors on July 28, once the enginehouse was enclosed. The ORHC opened to the public on September 22, 2012. Maintenance of the 700 continues to be carried out by the Pacific Railroad Preservation Association and a team of volunteers.

The Husband
StoreA
store that sells new husbands has opened in Manchester, just off Deansgate where
a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a
description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY
ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the
shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular
floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down
except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to
find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 -
These men Have Jobs

She
is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign
reads:Floor 2 -
These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

'That's
nice,' she thinks, 'but I want more.'

So she continues upward. The third
floor sign reads:Floor 3 -
These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good
Looking.'Wow,'
she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.She
goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:Floor 4 -
These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With
Housework.

'Oh,
mercy me!' she exclaims, 'I can hardly stand it!'Still,
she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:Floor 5 -
These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and
Have a Strong Romantic Streak.She
is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign
reads:Floor 6 -
You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This
floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for
shopping at the Husband Store.PLEASE
NOTE:To
avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just
across the street with the same rules.

The first floor has wives that
love sex.The second floor has wives that love sex and have money and like
beer.The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been
visited.

Looked all around for the rest of it. I don't want the gang eating squirrel innards.

Although I searched all around the coop and the run, there were no body parts laying about.

Now that all the leaves are off the tress, any critter is easy to spot from the sky. Even though I stay outside in the yard with them, Charley is always vigilant and sounds a warning when he sees something. He listens to the crows, too. When they start up, he chases the girls under the deck.

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Colossal Cave Mountain Park

An Attention-Grabbing Experience

Artifacts confirm that Colossal Cave was used as shelter by the ancient Hohokam Indians
from about 900 through 1450 AD. The peaceful Indians farmed the valley
below the cave, which about a thousand years later became known as La
Posta Quemada Ranch. Today the cave and ranch are united as Colossal
Cave Mountain Park, a historical destination and educational outreach
for school children.
A
tour through Colossal Cave is by itself an attention-grabbing
experience where natural formations were formed over millions of years.
The stalactites, stalagmites and majestic columns were created by
slow-seeping ground water through the limestone ceilings. As arid
conditions evolved, Colossal Cave became totally dry , stopping the
growth of new formations. Interestingly, although outside summer
temperatures can become quite high in the desert area, the temperature
inside Colossal Cave is always a cool 70 degrees Fahrenheit year-round.

Colossal Cave has never been fully explored. Although there
are an estimated 39 miles of cave tunnels, it took over two years to map
just two miles of passageway where tours penetrate six stories deep
into the cave. Visitors can choose from ongoing daily “generic tours”
or can arrange more adventurous tours through darkened more narrow
passages requiring hardhats and good physical fitness. There are even “candlelight tours” where
each visitor is given a lighted candle to experience the cave as the
Hohokam did over a thousand years ago without electric-powered lights.Officially, Colossal Cave was discovered by Soloman Lick in 1879.
While searching for stray cows on the vast ranch, he accidentally came
upon its narrow opening. That same entrance has been enlarged within a
modern setting that overlooks the panoramic views of La Posta Quemada
Ranch into over 2,000 acres of Colossal Cave Mountain Park.
There are actually two caves. The first of course is Colossal Cave which visitors tour daily. The other is “Arkenstone”, a “live cave”
which continues to grow formations. Arkenstone has been designated a
research site and access is limited to only scientific researchers. A
collection of photographs by Randy Gruss at the La Posta Quemada Ranch
Museum gives the public amazing views of the beauty inside Arkenstone
Cave.The “cowboy days” in the late 1800s
spawns stories of train robbers and escaped convicts that used the caves
as a hiding place. Perhaps the most famous were John Maier and Josiah “Kid”
Smith who were eventually shot by the Wells Fargo Messenger, J. Ernest
Smith. A third bandit of the group that had robbed a train near El Paso
named George Green was captured and sentenced to five years at the Yuma Arizona Territorial Prison.
La Posta Quemada Ranch has been a working ranch since the mid
1870s. The Southern Pacific Line operated a stagecoach station at the
ranch that was burned in 1875. Hence, the Posta Quemada name, which
means “burnt station”. Today the ranch includes an active
museum to promote public education and cultural history. Visitors will
enjoy the artifacts with information on past indigenous cultures.
Visitors to Colossal Cave and the ranch which is just 22 miles southeast of Tucson Arizona
offers many ways to explore the park including trail rides, hayrides,
cattle drives, cowboy style cookouts and pack trips through unspoiled
Sonoran Desert nature. It’s a great way for groups and families who
visit the part to experience the Colossal Cave and great outdoor
recreation as well. When visiting, make sure to see the Desert Tortoise
Exhibit. Also see the Butterfly Garden, a colorful haven of different
species that highlights the full lifecycle of butterflies.
There are many motels in Tucson and nearby Benson Arizona that are conveniently located to Colossal Cave. Please visit the Colossal Cave Mountain Park
website for more interesting insight into the history of the cave and
ranch. There you will find a Colossal Cave online gift shop, detailed
directions and contacts to arrange group tours and outdoor recreational
enjoyment.

About Me

Mostly about my backyard chickens (Boring, I know), but there are a lot of us out here. Mine are only kept as pampered pets. I could eat a neighbor's chicken, but not MINE. There may be a comment on current events only if I get riled up enough. And there will always be a cartoon or a joke to cheer us. I promise to try my very best to respond to comments. Now I have to figure out how this blogger thingy works....